Friday, April 29, 2011

Pink royal tiara

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Heh heh, someone was certainly excited about the Royal Wedding.
I think the choir lulled her to sleep. :X

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Chubby pink balloons

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Image courtesy of VectorStock


Taiwanese Fried Rice Vermicelli

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Kinda cravingTaiwanese Fried Rice Vermicelli 台式炒米粉 lately. Used to order this pretty often at one of my fave Taiwanese joints, whenever I was out of ideas for dinner and just wanted simple comfort food. The serving was always huge and it made great leftover the next day as lunch. It's pretty simple to make at home; I think every Asian mother knows how to cook one version of fried rice vermicelli or another. I think what makes this version Taiwanese is the inclusion of Chinese Five-Spice Powder 五香粉 and Dried Shrimp 蝦米. Mmmmmm, I love Taiwanese food. :9 Here's how to make Taiwanese Fried Rice Vermicelli at home.

Ingredients
Serves 4

1/2 lb Pork Loin, thinly sliced
3 Tbs Soy Sauce
3 Tbs Rice Wine
1 tps White Pepper
1 tps Chinese Five-Spice Powder
1 tps Cornstarch
2 cups Shitake Mushrooms, sliced
2 cups Cabbage, julienned
1 cup Carrot, julienned
1 Egg, beaten
2 Tbs Dried Shrimp, soaked in water then chopped
2 Tbs Garlic, chopped
4 Tbs Vegetable Oil
1 cup Chicken Stock
1 packet Dried Rice Vermicelli
Salt to taste

Method

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1. Mix the pork with soy sauce, rice wine, white pepper, five-spice powder and cornstarch in a bowl. Let it marinade and set aside.

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2. In a mixing bowl, soak the dried rice vermicelli in water for about 10 minutes then drain.

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(Note: Most likely the rice vermicelli that you get at Asian supermarkets will be white like the ones shown above; mine looks brown because I'm using brown rice vermicelli made from brown rice - so don't be alarmed if your 米粉 doesn't look like mine.)

2. Heat up 1 tablespoon vegetable oil in a wok and make an omelette. Roughly chop into small pieces and remove from wok, set aside in a bowl.

3. Now that the wok is empty, use the remaining 3 tablespoons vegetable oil to stir-fry the garlic and dried shrimp. Next add the pork and stir-fry until transparent.

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(Note: Here's a picture of Dried Shrimp 蝦米. They have to be soaked in water for a bit and can be used once they have softened. A little bit goes a long way and here's a warning that once they hit the hot oil the smell will be pungent, so make sure your kitchen is well-ventilated.)

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4. Add shiitake mushrooms, cabbage and carrot. Stir-fry until vegetables are wilted, add soy sauce and chicken stock.

5. Next add the rice vermicelli and season with salt. Stir-fry and incorporate everything together until all the chicken stock has been absorbed by the rice vermicelli. The completed dish should not be soggy. Don't forget to add the chopped up omelette you made earlier before serving.

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Enjoy and save some for the next day, if there's any left. :)



Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Pink cupcake

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Cupcake illustration courtesy of foodclipart.com

Jones The Grocer Wagyu Beef Burger

I checked out Jones The Grocer at Mandarin Gallery yesterday and ended up having dinner there. The dinner menu wasn't very elaborate so I settled for the Open-faced Wagyu Beef Burger which ended up blowing me away. It was amazingly delicious! i honestly didn't expect it plus I'm not really a burger person to begin with. But I gotta say it's one of the best burgers I've had in a while. The last time I went to Jones The Grocer, I had the roast beef sandwich which was yummy too.

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Burger time! *woot woot*

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For those who's never heard of Jones The Grocer, it's an Australian fancy-grocery-store-slash-deli-slash-cafe.

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They sell cheeses, wines, cured meats, pantry items, essentials such as olive oil, vinegar, etc. (Somehow kinda makes me miss Trader Joe's in a way.)

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Open-faced Wagyu Beef Burger with Rocket and Jones Balsamic Onion. Served with freshly made mayonnaise and roasted potato wedges.

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When the plate first arrived, I was tempted to ask for ketchup but decided against it. So I sprinkled some natural pink salt flakes onto my potatoes, dipped it in the homemade mayo and wow! It turned out to be a really good combo. This entire dinner was so yummy I am inspired to make it at home one of these days. :9

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Natural pink salt flakes, which I loved so much I picked up a bag to bring home to add to my collection.

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The salt collection in my pantry, from left: Pa'akai Hawaiian Salt, Murray River Gourmet Pink Salt Flakes, Terre Exotique Sel Noir d'Hawaii, Terre Exotique Fleur de sel with Vanilla, Himalayan Rock Salt, Terre Exotique Diamond Salt with grater. :) Salty much? You bet!

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How gorgeous does this Hawaiian Black Salt look? My little bottle of black beauty. :) :) :) I want to sprinkle this, along with cracked white peppercorns, over omelette. So that the black bits are salty, while the white bits are peppery. ;p Cool, right? Like your eyes and tastebuds are punkin' you out. Heh heh!

✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

By the way, are you guys following this blog yet via Google Friend Connect? Whassat, NOT YET?!?!?!?! What are you waiting for? I know you've been dropping in to visit and read, so come connect with me! :D

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Look over to the bar on the right → → →
Find the box close towards the bottom of the page that says Follow Me. It looks like this:


Click FOLLOW with Google Friend Connect. That's it and thanks!


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Colorblock Romper from Roselet Chic, Silver Ginko Earring from Embrace Jewelry.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Coconut Kiam Chai Bak

Another foray into cooking Peranakan food in my own kitchen. What is Peranakan cuisine? Check out my first installment here.

Coconut Kiam Chai Bak
Pork Ribs Sauteed with Tomato and Salted Veggie in Coconut Gravy

Ingredients
Serves 4

300g Salted Veggie (Kiam Chai)
500g Pork Ribs
2 Tomatoes
2 cups Coconut Milk
15 Dried Chillies
15 cloves Shallots
6 Candlenuts
3 cloves Garlic
1 inch Turmeric
1/2 Tbs Shrimp Paste
2 Tbs Tamarind Juice
1 Tbs Sugar
1 tsp Salt
3 Tbs Cooking Oil

Method

1. Slice the salted veggie into small pieces and soak in water. Doing this will prevent the salted veggie from being too salty.

2. Slice the tomatoes into pieces. Set aside.

3. Pound dried chillies, shallots, candlenuts, garlic, turmeric and shrimp paste together. You will yield about a cup of spice paste. Heat up cooking oil in wok and fry this spice paste until fragrant.

4. Add in pork ribs. When pork ribs are looking opaque and adequately browned, add in coconut milk. Simmer until pork ribs are fully cooked.

5. Lastly, add in salted veggie, tomatoes, tamarind juice, sugar and salt. Cook until gravy thickens.


The spices on stand-by, neatly laid out on the cutting board.


Candlenuts aka Buah Keras


Salted Veggie (cured mustard green). Sometimes it comes dried so be sure to soak in water first to rehydrate.


Salted Veggie, in wet form. It is often sold vacuum-packed in green-colored brine. It is very salty/pickly, hence this recipe recommends that you soak it in water first for a short while to tone down the saltiness.


Tamarind. This is what it looks like in its natural form, but you don't often get to see it like this in the Asian supermarkets.


Tamarind — processed and packaged. This is normally how you find it in supermarkets nowadays. Check out this great writeup on how to obtain tamarind for cooking from this block of gooey sticky pulpy mess. I just tear off a knob, soak it in hot water for a while and use the resulting juice.


Into the mortar all the spices go and pound away merrily with a pestle! Doesn't this actually look pretty and wholesome?


The resulting spice paste after pounding (about half an hour or so).


The finished dish.

I actually liked the flavours of this dish quite a bit and it wouldn't have occurred to me to mix coconut milk, salted veggie, tomatoes and pork. But it works! The flavours marry beautifully and I enjoyed this dish very much. :) Try making this in your own kitchen and let me know what you think.



Thursday, April 21, 2011

Yumminess in the morningness

My daily morning call sports a white and gray coat, four teeny paws and a fluffy tail. Who needs alarm clocks when you have a cat in the household?! She does not run on battery yet can go on and on and on even especially before she's fed.

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A note on the bottle of Azodyl. My kitty was diagnosed with renal failure four years ago, in other words one day her kidneys somehow decided not to work properly anymore hence, she has to go on a special diet as well as medication for the rest of her life starting from the day of diagnosis. The Azodyl capsules help to slow down uremic toxin buildup and prevent further kidney damage in dogs and cats. It is a breakthrough in veterinary product and works by providing natural enteric dialysis through the use of beneficial bacteria that support kidney function. Because she's physically small and coz she's a cat (duh), she can't swallow an whole capsule so every morning I have to crawl out of bed, crack open a capsule and mix the powdered medicine into her food.

So yeah, you can say that this is one mighty precious alarm clock kitty to me. ♥ ♥ ♥ And not to worry, she's doing fine and is constantly showered with lotsa lotsa lotsa TLC (a bit too much perhaps, kekekeke). In fact, I'm so thrilled that her latest blood test indicated improved results compared to her very first diagnosis results in 2008. Perhaps one day she will no longer need to rely on her meds and her vet may give me the green light to chuck the Azodyl? Ah well, no matter what I only wish for Mel to have a long healthy life. ☼ ☼ ☼ Man, I'm telling you.... my kitty has a really good, pampered life. I want to be her! ;)

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This cat of mine is quite a messy eater and I recently had to devise an impromptu moat for her food bowl, because I realize that there were plenty of ants enjoying the leftover messy bits in and around the bowl. I reckon ants can't swim so I've been putting her food bowl inside a plate filled with an inch of water. I think my moat has been pretty effective as I haven't spotted a single ant ever since my invention. Yay me. :P


Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Peranakan Beef Rendang

I *heart* Peranakan cuisine. Peranakan culture is so unique, and interesting to me personally, because it's a fusion of Chinese and Malay cultures. Food that's categorically Peranakan, also known as Nonya food, is very robust in flavours because pretty much all of them are built from a base of "rempah" — spices that have been pounded together. Traditionally these spices are pounded in a mortar and pestle. Peranakan desserts are also very delicious, but that's another level altogether and I don't think I am ready to tackle making any quite yet. I will stick to cooking savory dishes for now and see how it goes.

Peranakan or Nonya cuisine combines Chinese, Malay and other influences into a unique blend. Peranakans are descendants of early Chinese migrants who settled in Penang, Malacca, Indonesia and Singapore, inter-marrying with local Malays. The old Malay word nonya (also spelled nyonya), a term of respect and affection for women of prominent social standing (part “madame” and part “auntie”), has come to refer to the cuisine of the Perakanans.

Nonya cooking is the result of blending Chinese ingredients and wok cooking techniques with spices used by the Malay/Indonesian community. The food is tangy, aromatic, spicy and herbal. Key ingredients include coconut milk, galangal (a subtle, mustard-scented rhizome similar to ginger), candlenuts as both a flavoring and thickening agent, laksa leaf, pandan leaves (Pandanus amaryllifolius), belachan, tamarind juice, lemongrass, torch ginger bud, jicama, fragrant kaffir lime leaf, rice or egg noodles and cincaluk - a powerfully flavored, sour and salty shrimp-based condiment that is typically mixed with lime juice, chillies and shallots and eaten with rice, fried fish and other side dishes.
[Source: wikipedia]



Peranakan Beef Rendang

Ingredients
Serves 4

450 g Beef (I used beef stew meat, but you can use any cut you like; personally I prefer brisket but it was sold out at the supermarket during the time I was making this)
10 Dried Chillies
10 cloves Shallots
3 cloves Garlic
3 slices Galangal
2 stalks Lemongrass (stem part only)
1/2 inch Ginger
2 cups Coconut Milk
3 Tbs Cooking Oil
1 stick Cinnamon
3 pieces Kaffir Lime Leaves
1 Tbs Curry Powder
2 Tbs Tamarind Juice
1 tsp Salt

Method

1. Cut the beef into pieces. (I used a meat tenderizer gadget and pierced holes into the meat to tenderize as well as for the flavors to seep in more during the cooking process.)

2. Pound dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and ginger together. Use mortar and pestle, or you can blitz these in a food processor. (I cheated by blitzing the lemon grass first so that they become fine shreds, before pounding the hell out of them with the other ingredients mentioned above in the mortar.) You will yield about a cup of spice paste by the time you're done pounding/blitzing.

3. Heat up oil in wok and fry the cinnamon, pounded ingredient and kaffir lime leaves until fragrant.

4. Add in beef, curry powder, coconut milk, salt and tamarind juice. Cook until the gravy thickens.

5. Serve immediately. (Or leave in refrigerator for a day or two, the flavors will intensify and this dish tastes even better overnight imo.)


So there I was, using the stone mortar and pestle for the first time (I picked it up at the wet market for twenty-five bucks, probably overpriced but eh, it's a novelty for me). First thing I did was stick some small rubber stoppers onto the base so that it doesn't scratch my countertop or shelf during storage. And when I realized the "rempah" was gonna take some serious intensive pounding (a good twenty or so minutes), I put a hand towel underneath the mortar to help muffle the noise.


Here's the final result, adorned with a kaffir lime leaf which I conveniently plucked from my herb garden out in the balcony. ^^ This beef rendang definitely has a kick to it, so if you like spicy this dish is for you! I wish I had used beef brisket though, because the chewy tendons would have been a nice texture and an enjoyable factor to make the spices dance in the mouth more.




Friday, April 15, 2011

Holy crap!

HOLY CRAP, A CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED IN MY HOUSEHOLD!!! The other morning I woke up to a surprise in my bathroom, courtesy of my kitty.



How crappy is that? Litter-ally.

Thank goodness she was somehow smart enough (?) to have picked the bathroom as her crime scene. After getting over the initial surprise, I quickly picked up the poop with toilet paper and flushed it down the toilet, conveniently situated just two steps away. :P Phew. In retrospect, not really a terrible idea for her to poop in the bathroom.... in fact that's where she SHOULD be doing her biznis. Maybe I ought to find a suitable corner in the bathroom for her litterbox.

I find it amusing that my cat has the ability to show embarrassment or guilt after doing something she's not supposed to. Or is it just my imagination? This isn't the first instance she has an 'accident' of this nature. One time she had a bout of mysterious indigestion and diarrhoead all over my pillow WHILE I was sleeping on it. The stench was so strong I was jolted awake and first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was this crazy poppy mess, just barely a couple of inches away from my face. O_O And the cat? She was hiding inside the clothes cabinet, tucking herself in between stacks of sweaters with a very guilty face. Yikes! My cashmere sweaters...... :| Let's just say I had a very intense laundry day that day. -__-

So I've been fantasizing about some new kitty furniture again lately. Check out the last roundup I did here. How can anyone not love having non-fugly pet furniture which can blend in nicely with human furniture? I personally lean towards contemporary, modern style with simple shapes. A touch of cute is okay too.


1. Contemporary Litter Box Hider, 2. Ultra Mod Two-Storey Lounge, 3. Modern Cat Grass Planter by Agnieszka Bartosiewicz, 4. Pei Pod, 5. The Copenhagen Collection: Contemporary Cat Furniture from Designer Ree-Yong, 6. Kitt Pet Feeder from Qualy Design



1. V-Leg Micro Suede Memory Lounger, 2. Modern Day Bed Lounger, 3. Modern Chaise Bed Lounger, 4. ModKat Litter Box, 5. Lulu's Hideaway by Pet Project, 6. Coco's China Pet Feeder Bowl, 7. Cat Bowl Tray

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